William Blake and NPR

[Carly Sewell]

When Dr. Johnson mentioned William Blake was recently on NPR
for reasons unbeknown to me at the time, I was very curious. When I
listened to this NPR radio show about William Bolcom taking William
Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience and setting them to music, I
thought that this is no different from any other music created in any
time period. Although, it is different. The recording of these poems
on tape, are not just played by one instrument. It is conglomerate of
instruments and genre's. I think that when people think about musical
compositions by composers, many believe them to be composed with
strings or for the music to sung by a choir. This was not, which made
it atypical. I found it really very interesting that this composition
even included reggae. William Bolcom's compositions are not different
from any other composition because they do include musical intonations
of Blake's written intonations, otherwise known as accents. It would
be really cool to hear parts of this, or the whole thing.

[Mark and Jeanne Mulvanerty]

Carly,

The NPR clip I'd heard originally was a comparison between Blake and a
Muslim poet, Rumi. However, the one you found sounded so interesting to me!
I tried to hear a sample of the music on youtube, but could only find
samples on Amazon. However, there were some amateur musical renditions of
Blake's poems that ranged from folk-y to classical in style. (Some of them
are sort of humorous). It is amazing how many people interpret the poetry
in different ways!

Thanks for passing that along!
Best,
Jeanne Mulvanerty, ENG 323

[Michelle Goff]

Carly,
That song was pretty awesome. I don't really see how they are similar. But Jeanne I looked up the songs you talked about as well, they are very amateurish. I can see how they all saw the poem differently since people naturally interpret things in odd, humorous and even more serious ways.

Michelle